Uses For A World Map: To Find Classic Album Covers

Published Jul 27, 2009 at 10:45 AM

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The crowd gets up to all sorts of things, especially here in New York. But occasionally it can be harnessed for the power of good. Or at least for creating yet another tremendous time-waster for music nerds. And that is just what the fine people at The Word magazine have done, by coordinating a crowd-sourced map that pin-points the exact geographic locations where classic album covers were shot.

All the usual suspects are here, of course. "Abbey Road" takes you to London (which is very well represented) and shows you the Beatles in infamous form over a map of the very intersection where Paul started all that trouble by taking off his shoes. Looking up Bruce Springsteen jets you back to the states on takes you on a tour of the Garden State starting with Asbury Park.

The Beastie Boys take you back across the Hudson into Manhattan, where you may be surprised to find a familiar-looking corner on Rivington. In fact, Paul's Boutique was not in Brooklyn and there probably is no Janice. The write up for "Paul's Boutique" also tells you that the corner is currently home to the Three Monkeys Bar.

With a little bit of cross-referencing you can actually eat and drink your way through classic album art.

Everybody knows that the cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," where Dylan is walking arm-in-arm with girlfriend Suze Rotolo, was shot in the West Village. But did you also know that you could get decent Indian food right on that same block on the corner of Bleecker and Jones Street at Ghandi Cafe?